


bones of ribbon

by hellstrider



Series: Ice & Iron [4]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Aunty Dany, But not the way u think, Dany is too, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Familiar!Grey Worm, Family Feels, Good Dany AU, Jon and Dany are family, M/M, Mentions of Myth & Folklore, Pack Feels, Some Sex, The Targaryens are Unseelie, Tormund is Super Protective, Unseelie, Unseelie!Daenerys, Unsullied - Freeform, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, We get to some Plot, Werewolf Mates, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-30 23:33:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19413745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellstrider/pseuds/hellstrider
Summary: Claiming what was his took more courage than staring down the barrel of a gun.





	bones of ribbon

**Author's Note:**

> more woofs 
> 
> i've had wine forgive me lordt
> 
> title from london grammar's amazing song of the same name oof

Claiming what was his took more courage than staring down the barrel of a gun.

Jon still feels like a newborn fawn, shaky at the core when Tormund leans in to nose over his cheek. He slides one arm around the wolf’s neck and presses a hand over his heart, breath hitching in his chest as Tormund rolls his hips up into him and turns his insides to gold.

It took more courage because he was never afraid to lose his life – just this. And he’d almost lost it, though not because of his own foolish heart. In the darkest night, his soul had called out to the wolf that was always his, and he’d come. He’d found Jon and pulled him back from the brink with tooth and claw. As his life flowed from him, his wolf had found him, and there was no greater show of devotion than that.

When Jon had woken, scattered and lost, Tormund had been there to hold him together. He’d taken him into his den and kept him there, alpha-high and needy, frayed and barely able to string a sentence together.

Jon wasn’t about to wait for the next time. He still wonders if he’ll wake up and find it all was just a dream. It might be kinder if it was.

His wolf mouths over the scar on his chest and Jon moans with it, cock weeping pearly strands all over his belly and the sheets. The air is so thick with sex it makes him feel as if he’s underwater and at this rate, they’ll need an entirely new set of sheets and blankets. Jon keeps forgetting he has claws, keeps forgetting he can rip through linen and cotton easy as fingers through sand.

They’ve not left the den for a full day. Val called in the earliest hours to report her victory, both in the capture and the kill; Jon had clambered immediately into Tormund’s lap when he’d hung up, feeling feverish and needing to be kept still. His wolf, of course, had been only too glad to oblige.

Jon never wants it to end. He doesn’t deserve it, and he doesn’t deserve this, or the gentle hands over him, but he’s too weak not to take it. Being able to feel the spikes of desire that lanced through the wolf, to _scent_ them, sweet as vanilla – it was too much. It was all too much.

After what he thinks must be the third round, maybe the fourth, Tormund herds him into the shower. He washes Jon with firm hands and laughs when he whines, steals kisses that taste like smoke and _them_ , kisses that make him ache between his legs; Jon is dizzy with it, with the sudden surge of stamina he seems to have acquired along with his teeth and claws.

“You need to eat,” Tormund reminds him after the shower, as he pulls him in by a towel around his hips. “And you need more water.”

 _I need more **you** ,_ Jon thinks crazily, and he wonders if he’s finally snapped. The alpha’s nostrils flare then, and he arches a slow, amused brow. Jon burns from ears to toes.

“Is it always like this?” he asks as he gathers his hair in front of the mirror. “With – the ‘mates’ thing?”

Tormund hangs their towels and sidles up behind him, dwarfing his reflection as he slides his tattooed arms around his waist and growls low against his nape. He smells like cedar and sage, like fresh linen and wood-spice-smoke. He smells like _them,_ and it sets his bones on fire. Jon melts back against his chest and gentle claws skate over his hips.

“If we want it to be,” he says, voice shaking his spine, and Jon’s stomach swoops when he nuzzles over the bite in his throat and meets his gaze in the mirror only to flash alpha-gold eyes at him. “Do you want it to be?”

A beat. This has to be a dream. Then, Jon leans back and says, “yeah. Yeah, I really fucking do.”

The grin he gets in response makes him turn around to taste it. His wolf crowds him back against the counter, and Jon doesn’t think he’ll ever get tired of the way Tormund growls whenever he wraps his legs around his waist. It’s deep and burring and _possessive,_ the kind of possessive that makes his cock go painfully hard.

And then his stomach matches that growl. His wolf barks out a laugh against his throat, sliding arms around his waist to catch him close and Jon huffs, linking his ankles behind Tormund when he lifts him up from the counter.

“ _Maybe_ I need food,” Jon admits, trailing his fingertips over the Ogham down his scalp and throat. “Maybe.”

“Stubborn little thing.”

“You’d be bored otherwise.”

Tormund hums, kissing over Jon’s cheek. Just as he’s about to try and convince the wolf to put his mouth somewhere more useful, his ears strain and the hair on the back of his neck stands on end, and the alpha’s hum turns into a growl. A rapid series of knocks rains down on their door, and outside, Jon can hear the crunch of tires. Tormund goes _tense_ , tense and still, and Jon knows it’s not Val that approaches their hidden sanctuary.

His alpha confirms his fear when he breaks away from him and snarls, “ _stay there_ ,” as he drags on his jeans. He hears the door open and Karsi’s voice comes, but Jon can’t focus on it over the savage beating of his own heart and the howls that pierce the air outside.

Jon’s lungs launch up into his throat and he leaps down from the counter, ignoring Tormund’s order. He struggles into a fallen pair of sweats and tugs on one of Tormund’s huge sweatshirts, barreling out of the bathroom as the alpha turns a gold-eyed gaze on him.

“You fucking _stay here,”_ Tormund orders, pulling on a tank top and shoving his feet into his boots. “Understand me?”

“What is it?”

“I don’t fucking know.”

“Crows?”

“No. We’d be on fire.”

Tormund drags him in by the neck of the sweatshirt then, kisses away the protests that build over his tongue. Then, he’s gone, and Jon, somewhat breathless, rushes to the windows. Through the haze of the old glass he can make out a huge black SUV parked in the sand; his pack surrounds it, and Jon catches a glimpse of silver hair as a woman emerges from the back of the huge car.

His alpha moves to meet her, and that’s all Jon waits around for, his heart between his teeth as he runs for the door.

Tormund really should know better by now, he thinks, as he rushes down the steps to the garage beneath the den. Ygritte is stationed at the door of the garage; she snaps her teeth at him and growls a low, warning, “ _Snow,”_ but Jon _snarls_ , and her eyes go wide, her scent becoming akin to that of the sour tide. She slinks back, and Jon hurries out into the grey sunlight.

“ – not _lying,”_ the silver-haired woman is saying, and her voice is melodic and rich, wrought with an emotion that pulls at his heartstrings. “You can hear my heartbeat, I _promise_ you –“

“Unseelie have no true heartbeat,” Karsi cuts in. The man beside the silver-haired woman, a man with brown skin and a grim face, sways closer to her side and she lifts a hand, staying him.

“Not that a beta could hear,” the silver-haired woman says, pleadingly now. “But you, alpha. You can.”

“Tor!”

Jon pushes through his pack, and a pair of watery violet eyes flickers to him and holds. The silver-haired woman inhales, sharp and painful and Tormund looks around with a mouthful of fang and a snarling curse on his tongue.

“I _told you_ ,” Tormund starts hotly, and the silver-haired woman takes a brave step forward.

The pack surges and she halts, pretty face looking as if she’s been struck. Jon grabs Tormund’s arm when the wolf snaps and snarls; there’s something about her that keeps pulling at him, pulls at him in the way his wolves do. Her soft pink lips curve then, even as tears streak down her cheeks.

The wolf living under his heart cries out _pack._

Jon can’t breathe.

“It’s really you,” she manages. “ _Look_ at you.”

Jon presses a hand flat to Tormund’s chest, giving the wolf a long, lingering look. The alpha’s nose furls into a sneer but when Jon steps away, he doesn’t move to catch him. Slowly, Jon approaches the silver-haired woman, who looks like she’s about to break down at any moment. 

Her near-white hair is long, almost to her waist, intricately braided behind her head in swirls and whirls. She wears a pantsuit of dark charcoal, a little darker than the suit her man wears, and a shiny red ascot gleams around her slender white throat, under the high, arching collar of the suit. A pendant of a dragon’s open maw lays over her chest.

She smells like – _she smells like_ –

Soft hands cup his face. She’s ageless, this woman, looks so achingly young but carries with her a wisdom that reminds Jon of the standing stones dotting their wild highlands. It’s an ancient sort of wisdom, one borne of the earth itself.

Her violet eyes shimmer like a dusk he’s never seen, and around her is a permeating sense of _Otherness –_ an _otherness_ he’s felt since he was just a boy and never was brave enough to look in the face. It calls to the thing inside him now, calls to the wolf and the wild that he was born with between his teeth, and her smile grows.

“You’re alive,” she whispers. “Little Aegon. Look at you. Oh, look at you. You… You have your father’s eyes.”

His stomach swoops as if he’s been dropped from the greatest height. The wild wolf inside him _keens,_ keens like a pup desperate to find a mother long gone to ground.

 _Aegon._ It’s like a word from another world, the world she carries around her.

“Who are you?” Jon asks when he finally grasps his voice, and the silver-haired woman looks so sorrowful for a moment he regrets asking at all. Then, she turns to steel, but her gaze is still gentle, and her hands ever soft.

“I am Daenerys Targaryen,” she begins with strength, “Queen of the Abyssal Wilds, protector of the fair folk, first of my name.”

“Queen of the _Unseelie_ ,” Karsi growls behind them. “Queen of ice and iron.”

“Your alpha took a mate of _ice and iron_ , beta,” Daenerys says, not looking away from Jon, and his heart flips. “Yes, my little Aegon. You are blood of my blood. The son of my brother, Rhaegar Targaryen, taken from us in a war of gunpowder and foul mortal _bigotry_ that still hasn’t ended.”

Jon feels struck numb. He wraps a hand around Daenerys’ wrist and looks to Tormund, who looks like he’s about to rip the earth apart. But then, his alpha’s eyes meet his own, and after a long, agonizing moment, he inclines his head.

The truth. Daenerys spoke the truth.

“I have no intent to bring you harm, alpha,” Daenerys – his _aunt –_ says then, and she steps aside to address the pack in full, but keeps one slender hand to his chest, and Jon is grateful for it. It might be the only thing holding him upright.

“Before I was Queen of my realm, I was mated to the great _Khal Drogo,_ alpha of the golden sea.”

A soft ripple goes through the wolves, and Jon can’t look away from his aunt’s profile, delicate and fearsome all at once. She looks right at Tormund then, and lifts her chin enough to make it seem like she’s baring her throat.

“I ran with wolves, alpha. Your kind came from my realm, did you know that? The first wolf-soul tumbled from the Abyssal Wilds to taste the free wild of the mortal realm, and now, here you are.”

“A pretty story,” Tormund growls. “Why show yourself to Jon Snow now? Why come now?”

“ _Jon Snow_.” Daenerys turns those violet eyes on him. “Is that what they called you?”

“It… fits,” Jon rasps after a beat, and Daenerys’ expression goes soft at the edges.

“I thought you were gone; I thought I was alone,” she says quietly, for him and him alone, but the others hear it. “And then – and then I could feel you again.”

Her hand goes to the scar over his chest, where the bullet had bit into him. It’s hidden under Tormund’s sweatshirt, but Daenerys looks like she can see it anyway.

“I _saw you_ ,” his aunt says, and more tears run down her cheeks, “ _bleeding out._ I saw a golden wolf chase the men who did it – and a red one bite into you. I was going to hunt the ones who did this – but that kill doesn’t belong to me.”

She looks back to Tormund, and Jon can feel the weight of his gaze over him. He meets his alpha’s stare and tries to let his eyes go silver; Tormund’s flash gold in reply and Jon manages to give him a smile. The alpha seems to relax then, and he reaches out to grip Karsi’s shoulder.

“You protect him as you would your own heart. You and I have this in common, alpha,” Daenerys says. “And you saved him. I owe you a debt greater than I could ever say. A Targaryen alone in the world is a terrible, terrible thing.”

“He isn’t alone,” Tormund says, and Jon feels it like a promise and a threat.

Daenerys’ lips curve slowly then, violet gaze flickering between the pair of them. “No,” she says quietly. “No, he isn’t. Another debt I owe you, then.”

“Wolves have no use for debts.” The alpha prowls forward then and Jon slides a hand up his arm when he offers the other out to Daenerys. “Our only currency is loyalty, little white queen.”

When Daenerys grips Tormund’s tattooed arm firmly, gaze unwavering, the wolf in Jon preens and yips, howling as two packs blur and meet in the middle. Questions clatter through the human part of him – whatever small part that’s left of him - but they can wait. Daenerys turns then and the grim-faced man in the three-piece charcoal suit steps forward, one brow arched and his aura radiating a different sort of protectiveness than Tormund, but just as strong. He smells like sandalwood and something vaguely fruity, but not overly sweet.

“This is Grey Worm, leader of the Unsullied,” his aunt says, “and one of my oldest and most steadfast friends.”

“The – the _Unsullied_?” Jon tries not to gape as Grey Worm lifts his chin with a steely coolness he can’t help but admire. “The Unsullied. Deadliest supernatural strike force known to man made up of freed Familiars - _those_ Unsullied? I thought they were a myth.”

Daenerys smiles then, slow and clever, and Tormund snorts.

“Seen _that_ smirk before, can’t say where,” the wolf says, and Jon shoots him a narrow glance. “Faeries and fucking Familiars and men who become wolves – not much can be called a myth anymore, sweet thing.”

“No,” Jon huffs. “Fuck me.”

“This is overwhelming, I know,” Daenerys says, reaching out to fiddle with a loose lock of his hair. “Trust me, I feel it too. My nephew, alive and well – it’s more than I could have ever dreamed of.”

A lump rises up in Jon’s throat. “You said – you said I was taken?”

Daenerys’ gaze is sorrowful as she runs her knuckles over his cheek. “I’ll tell you all I know. And – you go by Jon, then?”

“I – yeah. It just – fits. Sorry.”

“It’s been your name your whole life, don’t apologize. You can grow fangs, it shouldn’t be impossible for me to learn a new name for you. As I will learn about you.”

Jon’s chest floods with a raw affection that renders him a little breathless.

“Do we have room for them?” he asks, and Tormund arches a brow.

“Room is never a problem at Northstar,” he huffs. “So long as you don’t mind howling and the stench of oil, little white queen.”

“Sounds just like home,” Daenerys says, quirking a brow, and Tormund shows his teeth.

They put them up in a small den near Ygritte’s, on the other side of the garage and behind the pub. Grey Worm’s edges blur when they come to the den’s white door, and with a snap and a sigh, the Familiar leaps into a form of a massive lynx, fur dark as his suit and eyes round and amber. He prowls into the room, sniffing as he goes, and Daenerys shoots Jon a gentle smile.

The air around them smells like rosewater and the way lightning looks, and Jon can’t get enough of it.

The pub in the middle of the complex is empty when Jon steps inside, Tormund close at his heels. They’ve left Daenerys to settle in, Ygritte standing guard outside to lead her there when she’s ready, and Jon is somewhat grateful for the pause.

He sinks down into a stool at the bar as his hands start to shake, and then there’s a bigger pair, tattooed and calloused and sea-burnt, that come to wrap around them. Jon lifts his gaze to the alpha, who watches him with a sharp lift to one brow.

“This is real, right?” Jon rasps. “This is – this is real. I’m not asleep.”

“Don’t think so, sweet thing.” Tormund nudges his chin with a curled finger. “You say the word, and I send her away.”

Jon’s chest _clenches._ He almost pitches a whine and the alpha leans in to nuzzle his cheek, rumbling deep and soothing in his belly. He doesn’t want Daenerys gone – he also doesn’t know if he wants to know any more of the truth. His emotions are a tattered, wild thing in him, and he knows Tormund can feel it.

“Do you think it’s true?”

“What do you think?”

Jon falters. “You’re the one who could hear her heartbeat.”

“Aye. But you have the wolf in you now, Jon. What did it tell you?”

A pause, while he struggles to find the right words to put to the fangs in his chest. “That she – she’s. Like home. Not – this is my home, but she’s – also my home?”

Tormund tilts his head and his gaze softens. He sweeps a thumb over Jon’s bottom lip, and Jon leans into the touch, chasing it.

“Pack, family – the wolf always knows, sweet thing. Aye, her heartbeat stood true when she spoke, which is why she’s not on the sand with her throat ripped out. But just because she spoke the truth and I didn’t put my claws in her doesn’t mean I trust her, not just yet.”

The alpha radiates a possessive, protective aura that’s stifling in a way he never thought he would yearn for. One huge hand splays over Jon’s jaw and he kisses over his brow, resting at his temple. He curls his fingers into the alpha’s tank top and pulls him closer, until Tormund is between his legs, and Jon can press his face to his throat.

“You want to run, you tell me.”

“No running from this,” Jon says. “I need to know, Tor. I need to know – who I am.”

“Who you are,” Tormund huffs. “ _You_ made who you are, little wolf. Blood means little but to the earth, and names only mean something to the ones who put us in the ground. You know who you are. But if you want to make this a part of you, Jon, then you should.”

Jon leans back, searching that sharp face, and his heart lurches into his throat when he surges up to catch Tormund’s mouth in a kiss. The wolf hums against his lips, pleased, and his hands slide up under his huge sweatshirt. It sends a rush down his spine, a thing that moves quick and moves hot. When a clever, pierced tongue prods at his mouth he parts his lips, sighing into it, already aching and half-hard in his sweats.

He doesn’t deserve this, or him, but _fuck –_ he’s too fucking greedy to let him go. He’d almost died, and all he could think of was Tormund, with his wild red hair and his sea-blue eyes. The only thing he could think of was the fact that he’d never see him again, and it had become a beast inside him even before the wolf had bit into him.

“They’re coming,” Tormund says against him, and Jon had almost forgotten everything outside the way the wolf’s hands were big enough to span almost the entirety of his ribs. “You want me to stay?”

Jon can hear them now, too. Ygritte is babbling, as always, and Daenerys’ voice is beyond amused when she answers the young wolf. He tugs at Tormund’s tapered beard and nips at his mouth again, drawing a light growl.

“You won’t go far. I know you.”

“Aye,” Tormund answers, cupping his chin, “you do.”

He kisses his brow one last time and then the alpha steps back. The door to the pub pops open, Ygritte bouncing in with Daenerys following after, violet eyes sweeping over the high rafters to drink it all in with a growing smile. Jon’s stomach swoops to see her, and Tormund lays a gentle, soothing hand over his nape.

“This is darling,” Daenerys says, going easily when Ygritte takes her hand to lead her to the bar. “You truly have a little world here, away from it all.”

The pub is a cozy place, he does admit to that, with its huge hearth and cobbled floor, the rafters hung with dried hops and ropes bearing massive seashells. Bear and sheep furs drape over the wooden booths, shiny ox horns on the walls amongst various picture frames and a few scattered dartboards.

It smells like the pack, like the clove of Val’s mulled wine and the sharp tang of the wolfsbane-infused liquor Tormund keeps on the top shelf. It’s his true home, the one he found, and to see Daenerys so comfortable in it makes something in his chest go fond and warm in the soft way seeing his sisters smile always did.

_The wolf always knows._

“We do well for ourselves,” Tormund agrees, amiable as always. He squeezes Jon’s shoulder, then moves away from the bar, and Jon tries not to swallow his own tongue.

“You and I will speak later, little white queen. Ygritte, with me.”

The wolf tugs a lock of her red hair, and Ygritte waves brightly before she hops after her elder brother. Once the doors of the pub swing shut, Daenerys slides carefully onto a stool, still gazing around the place with bright, wide eyes.

“This really is quite the sanctuary,” she says. “No wonder no one has been able to find the wildlings and their hot-headed alpha.”

“You did,” Jon points out. His aunt – and she is, isn’t she – arches a brow.

“I followed the ley lines to _you_ , darling,” Daenerys says. She looks over the bar. “Do you have red wine? If I’m going to be talking about my brother, I’ll need wine.”

Jon huffs, the fondness growing in his gut, and he rises to walk around the bar and get two glasses. He thanks the Gods for Val’s expensive taste, popping open a bottle that looks far and beyond anything he’s ever had before, and Daenerys swirls her glass a moment before taking a dainty sip.

“This is lovely – Gods, Drogo only ever stocked up on the worst, cheapest shit. It was like grape juice gone sour. That, and the foulest beer I’ve ever had. One of the richest alphas in the world, and he still insisted on swill water.”

“One day you’ll see what Tor drinks,” Jon says grimly. “It’s beyond anything I’ve ever encountered. Like gasoline.”

Daenerys’ nose scrunches and she gives a little laugh. “To the wolves, then,” she says, and there’s a soft sadness around her when she says it. Jon raises his glass to meet hers; it’s fine wine, but he really could never tell the difference, much to Val’s utter horror.

“Are there still Khals in the east?” Jon asks, and Daenerys shakes her head.

“After Drogo died, they fell to infighting. Devoured themselves.”

“I’m sorry.”

Daenerys gives him another sad smile. “It was a long time ago. Well – perhaps not so much in the terms of my life, but. It was right before you were born.”

“If you’ll forgive the question –“

“Just a little under three hundred,” Daenerys cuts in, laughing a little when Jon chokes on a sip of wine. “In terms of human lifespans, I’m barely thirty. I was a willful thing back then; I left my tattered realm for a wolf with golden skin and black hair and eyes wilder than any fire I’d ever seen.”

It grips Jon tight. Daenerys stares into the distance for a moment, lost in memory, and then she shakes it. She reaches out, and grips his hand, her smile back in full when she says, “tell me how you found your wolf, darling. Tell me about the alpha.”

A sticky, cloying, brilliant lump rises in his throat at the mere thought of it, and Daenerys arches a knowing brow.

“I was a man of the Night’s Watch,” he says after a beat. “We hunted those that hunted innocents. Or, so they told me.”

“I have heard of the Watch. Your – your mother’s family. They were entwined quite close with that particular group, weren’t they?”

There’s steel edging her voice. Jon nods after a moment, and Daenerys breathes evenly through her nose.

“I went into the Watch early,” he admits. “My da – Ned. Ned Stark. He. Well, he passed me off as his lovechild, conceived on some business trip. His wife – she was none too fond of me. There was always a Stark at the Watch, and so I went. Mostly to get away from her.”

“Oh, Jon…”

“It’s fine,” Jon huffs, but Daenerys doesn’t look like she buys it. “One day they told me about a new alpha in Scotland that needed to be brought down. The Watch had killed the previous alpha and wiped out most of the pack. Long history between the wildlings and the Crows, apparently.”

“Isn’t that how it always seems to be?”

“In this world? Yeah.” Jon swirls the wine in his glass. “So, I came north. Got caught out by feral vampires – the White Walkers, the wildlings called ‘em. They roam the far north highlands, nasty fuckers.”

And Jon can still see it; can still see the hissing white faces, the protruding fangs like icicles. He smiles faintly, and Daenerys leans on the bar, hands folded under her chin.

“Thought I was gonna die there, if I’m being honest. And then a huge wolf just – leaps right in the middle of ‘em. Bigger than any fucking wolf I’d ever seen. A huge, red beast. Ripped the Walkers apart like they were nothing.”

Daenerys hums. “Your alpha.”

“Tor.” Jon shakes his head, a smile pulling at his lips. “Tormund _fucking_ Giantsbane, if we’re getting proper about it.”

“ _Quite_ the name.”

“He _says_ he killed a giant.”

“I can see it.”

“No, you can’t.”

“I can!” Daenerys laughs. “Am I not to encourage this?”

“It’s already past the point where it can be discouraged,” Jon says, and his aunt’s laugh really sounds the way silver bells look.

“So you left your Crows for a wolf,” Daenerys says after a comfortable pause, fond and warm, “and I was a willful young thing that left her homeland for one.”

Jon pauses with his glass to his lips. “Seems like we might have a few things in common,” he remarks, and his aunt’s whole face changes when she smiles, it truly does.

“My poor brother would have quite the time of it, dealing with the pair of us.” She tilts her head. “You truly do have his eyes. And his smile. He was a beautiful thing, Rhaegar was. So was your mother. It’s no wonder their child is so sweet-faced.”

Chest tight, Jon leans against the bar if only for something to anchor himself to.

“What happened?” he asks finally, and Daenerys finishes off her glass before reaching for the bottle.

“I left my homeland to go with Drogo,” she starts carefully. “While my brother... Rhaegar took Lyanna Stark, daughter of hunters, back to our realm to be with her. And she went quite gladly, I’m told. Her mother pleaded to see her close to the end, to see her grandchild – and Rhaegar, the fool, agreed to bring Lyanna back.

“You were born here – under a harvest moon. I still remember feeling it; you came into the world, and my brother left it. Rhaegar was killed, and you – you vanished. Lyanna died shortly after.”

The tears burn at the seam of his eyelids but refuse to fall. A slim, cool hand covers his, and Jon looks up to find Daenerys’ violet eyes just as bright. She reaches up then to cup his cheek, and his wolf howls _packfamilyhome_ as she sweeps a tear away.

“I’m so sorry, Jon,” she whispers. “If I had known…”

“My dad told me he’d tell me about my mother,” Jon says then. “He was killed by other hunters before he could. I don’t – understand why he would keep it from me.”

“You are a child of two worlds, darling,” Daenerys says. “No matter what happened between us, he must have loved you. To lose you to the Unseelie – especially for a family of hunters…”

“And now here I am.” His gums itch. “A fucking wolf anyway.”

“A _magnificent_ thing,” Daenerys says fiercely. “You are more than a wolf. You are ice and iron, fire and blood. They _did not_ break you. Don’t let the truth try.”

Jon meets her violet eyes, and they go gentle as she smooths his hair back behind his ear.

“Whatever the path, you weren’t alone. And now you have me, and I have you. A win, I think.”

And he can’t help but agree.

For a little while longer they talk, the wine slowly dwindling down and the sun fading outside. He learns she won her kingdom back with the blessings of three dragons, three beasts she speaks of with such adoration he thinks they must be like her children. They dwell still in the other realm – in the Abyssal Wilds, a place of constant moonlight and dragonfire.

It makes Jon ache. He wants to see it, to see the forests and the silver sea. Daenerys promises he will, and he believes her. He learns Daenerys was the one who freed the Unsullied and gave them free will. He learns she has a druid in her pocket and has lost more than he ever thought possible.

In turn, Jon tells her about his siblings. About Robb, who runs a law firm and pretends the supernatural doesn’t exist, pretends his little firm is the only thing, free and independent of the rest of them. About Sansa, who has a dozen charities and fingers in every pie she thinks will feed people.

He tells her about Arya, who never talks about what she does, and Jon suspects she’s actually far more important to MI-6 than she lets on. About Bran, who is too smart for his own good, and who he thinks he must have some kind of foresight, and Rickon – Rickon, who just wants to enjoy life as endlessly as he can and caused so many headaches for his father but seemed to hold the entire family together.

Eventually, Jon begins to feel weary, and after Daenerys yawns for the fifth time in as many minutes, he rises to take their glasses behind the bar. When he returns, Daenerys is smiling at him in that way she did when she spoke of her dragons. _Like a mother might her child,_ Jon thinks, and it makes his chest burn.

When she draws him down to kiss his brow, he doesn’t resist it. She smells like rosewater and the way lightning looks, and she’s _family._ The same blood that runs in her veins runs in his, but she doesn’t hold any secrets, and hasn’t come to hide him away under lies.

They leave the pub to find Grey Worm outside, in his lynx form, curled up on the wide stone deck that wraps around to the gardens. Daenerys huffs and shakes her head as the Familiar rises, ruffling his fur and yawning wide. She reaches out to run a hand over his head, and the Familiar blinks up at Jon with huge, knowing amber eyes.

“He does not trust easy,” Daenerys says a tad apologetically. “Along with the fact that if anything happened to me, his wife would probably use his fur as a rug.”

“It’s alright,” Jon says with a soft laugh. “Tor’s probably lurking around here somewhere.”

“How well loved we are, hm?”

She squeezes his hand then, and Jon, a little overwhelmed and more than a little emotional, draws her in for a tight hug. Daenerys gasps quietly, and Grey Worm’s ears swivel forward, but Jon holds on as his aunt brings careful arms around his waist.

When he lets go, wood-spice-smoke wafts over him. Tormund is leaning against an old rusted truck, so old it’s grown into the foliage around it, watching them from afar. He looks spectacular, the mere sight of him enough to drag the air from Jon’s lungs, with his wild hair swept back, and the red, red roses inked on his left shoulder gleaming so vividly in the dark of night.

“What did I tell you?” Jon asks his aunt, voice a little thick, and she laughs, swiping a quick hand under her eye. “Go get some sleep. We both need it.”

He watches her go, Grey Worm lumbering along at her side, before he sidles to Tormund. The wolf’s head is tipped back, eyes shut, face bathed in moonlight; it’s only three days to the full moon, and Jon can feel the pull of it already, like someone’s tugging glue off his skin.

His alpha leans down when he comes near, nosing over his damp cheek. It’s quiet in the clutch of early night, the sea a soft song to the west and the nightingales crooning through the forest to the south. Tormund kisses across his jaw, gently, so gently, then slides one of his huge hands into Jon’s.

“Where -?”

“Just follow me, sweet thing,” the wolf urges, pulling his arm gently. “Trust me.”

Jon treads after him. “Always,” he says, and Tormund growls low.

They move through the forest, away from the Northstar. Even tired as he is, wrung out dry, Jon’s wolf perks at the freedom and the wild, and he thinks if he had ears they would be turning this way and that. The woods to the south of the Northstar are a sacred kind of place, hold an ancientness in them that makes Jon almost want to pray.

He’s been through them several times, but not like this. Not like this, where he could smell the richness of the magic earth, hear the whispers of the soft creatures living in their protective depths.

Not like this, with his wolf keening and needing to run, chase, hunt. Will o’ wisps drift through the canopy overhead and he can hear their gentle chiming chatter clear as day, a thing he used to strain to hear before.

He follows Tormund through the well-spaced trees, over the mossy rocks and through the curtain of a weeping willow to find a pool of clear, clear water sprawling before them. A waterfall burbles over the rocks across from them, and Jon feels a pervasive, incredible sense of peace wash over him.

There are blankets and pillows cradled in the roots of the tree, and Jon goes warm all over as Tormund draws him close and slides a hand to the nape of his neck. The kiss is a seeping thing, spilled wine and ink, a thing that unfurls through his throat and grows wings against his shoulder-blades.

And then Tormund steps out of his boots, hands going to his belt. The alpha steps back and Jon, somewhat dazed, watches as he tosses his shirt aside and steps backwards into the water. He sinks beneath the surface and appears in the middle of the pool to shoot Jon an arched brow, a will o’ wisp drifting airily over his head.

“Isn’t that _freezing_?” Jon demands, even as his hands go to the band of his sweats.

The alpha laughs, and Jon nearly trips in his haste to step out of his own shoes, tossing his sweatshirt towards the roots of the willow. Tormung looks _incredible,_ water sluicing down his thick chest, over hardened muscle and scars. The golden light from the will ‘o wisps makes his hair gleam brighter than any fire, skin shining like a newborn sun.

“I’ll keep you _plenty_ warm, sweet thing.”

The water isn’t, as Jon thought, horribly frigid. His wolf comes to meet him, catching him in his arms as Jon slips over a stone. It’s a balmy kind of cool, sending goosebumps up his spine that Tormund chases away with sweeps of his huge hands. Jon feels like he’s alpha-high again when the wolf looks at him, looks at him like he can see through him, to the core of him.

His aunt is back in the den he calls home, and Tormund is the one who made sure he’d live to meet her. Tormund, who pulled him back and bit at death until it surrendered.

And here, the emotion overtakes him. Jon’s breath hitches and he runs his knuckles over the wolf’s cheek, his chest a tangle of chaos and his stomach suspended between his lungs. His wolf slides a hand over his scar, fingers dancing over the pulse of his throat, and he can’t – there’s no way he can keep this.

“Your heart’s going mad,” Tormund murmurs low. “Where are you, baby? Come back to me.”

"I'm fine," he insists, craning his neck for another kiss. Always another, because he doesn't know which will be his last. "I'm really fine, Tor."

"You reek of angst, sweet thing." The wolf tangles his hand in his hair, and Jon's breath hitches when he pulls ever-so-gently. "Talk to me. I can guess, but you won't like when it isn't gentle."

Jon searches his face, the face he loves so well, and his throat goes thick.

“I was supposed to kill you,” he blurts, and he doesn't feel the wine – wolves don’t feel it, not unless they add the ‘bane to it, but he wishes he did. “I was supposed to _kill you_. And now here I am.”

“I know.” Tormund cups his chin. “Had a wolf that thought I should've killed you. I tore his throat out.”

Jon’s heart staggers. “ _What?_ ”

“Mm. I know what you tell yourself in the dark, sweet thing,” Tormund says then. “I’ve smelled that fear on you. The fear that you don't fit. The fear that you've lost something you still have. You _have_ me, my little wolf. And there’s not a fucking force in this world that could take me from you.”

He stares up at the wolf, who has only ever told him the truth. He stares up at the wolf, who looks at him like he does the mother moon and inhales sharp and quick before he surges up to catch his lips in a fierce, burning kiss. His wolf draws him impossibly closer, draws him so close Jon thinks they might truly become one, and the ice of his doubt splinters.

_Tor?_

The memory of his own shattered voice lances through him. Jon groans as Tormund bites down his throat, sucks hard at the scars of his rebirth.

_Keep talking, baby, keep talking to me, you need to keep –_

_Tor, I’m so sorry._

The last call, the only one he could make. He splays a hand over Tormund’s heart, fingertips bearing claws.

_I’m coming, Jon, just –_

_I’m so cold, Tor._

Heat unfurls across his gut. How can he keep this?

_I need you to hang on, baby, just a little longer, you need to hang on._

_Jon?_

_Jon!_

Tears roll down his cheeks and his alpha kisses them away. Jon gasps against his wolf’s mouth, the water splashing between them with the force of their bodies surging together. He slides his shaking hands up his arms, utters a plea of his name against his tongue.

Tormund gathers him between his hands, gathers the pieces of him and keeps them, holds them as Jon tries to heal, tries to fuse himself back together.

And the heat is blooming into something softer now, something gentler, as Tormund brings Jon to his chest and drifts back through the water, keeping him close. There’s no urgency now, because this is his – because this is the immovable constant that keeps him pointed north.

They drift through the balmy water and Jon draws back to meet blue eyes gone gold. This is a piece of him, he thinks, a piece that fell off before he crashed into the body that the world gave him. Tormund slides a hand into his hair, noses over his cheek and breathes his name in his ear.

“I love you,” the wolf murmurs. “That will never change. Believe me, don’t. But I’ll always tell you, and it’ll always be true.”

Jon slides an arm around his neck and the sob breaks from his lips, harsh and pained. There’s a memory of a bullet in his heart and the phantom of Tormund’s tears on his skin, just over the bite that saved him; his aunt is in the home he found, and he is a child of two worlds, different as fire and ice.

But as Jon holds onto his alpha, holds onto the one thing that sang the wild from him and put steel over his bones, the world begins to fall away. The world falls away to the scratch of his beard over his throat, to the shape of his teeth in his skin, and Jon, for the first time, lets himself believe this will stay.

**Author's Note:**

> jon needs to chill the fuck out tbh


End file.
